Chapter 3: Hard Bargains and Unexpected Fights

Watching Yun Shi successfully buy a finished weapon from the NPC, nearby players snap out of their shock and awe.

CherryWhatFlavor mimics Yun Shi first, using the same tactic to snag a blade.
His stream’s chat erupts with a flood of “666.”
Beaming with his new gear, Cherry sidles up to Yun Shi, chuckling and ready to pat his shoulder.
“Bro, that was bad*ss!”

Yun Shi steps back, dodging the gesture, and turns to leave.

Cherry’s hand hovers awkwardly in midair.
A new message pops up in the team chat.

[Clouds and Breezes]: Move fast!

What’s up?
Puzzled, Cherry quickly follows, moving away from the NPC’s doorstep.

Wind ability users get a speed boost.
In moments, Yun Shi’s already far ahead.
Cherry jogs to catch up, glancing back.
The NPC’s house is now swarmed by players who heard the news.

“Bro, how’d you know threatening the NPC would work?
You played the beta, right?”
Deep in a forest, with the NPC’s house out of sight, Cherry asks.
“And why’d we have to run?”

“Nope,” Yun Shi says, equipping the curved blade with a smooth motion, tucking it at his waist.
“That NPC’s just a regular guy.”

Regular guy?
Cherry pauses, then gets it.
“No wonder!
That jerk NPC deserved it!
So that’s the right way to deal with him?”

He turns to his stream’s slower viewers, explaining:
“We’re in the apocalypse phase of Breath of Life.
A regular guy facing ability users like us, trying to scam two fine materials?
Of course we’d be pissed.
We were too cautious after that brutal island landing.
Sometimes, you gotta go bold…”

Cherry trails off, noticing Yun Shi staring.
“I don’t mean you’re reckless, bro!”

Yun Shi shakes his head, unbothered.
“Being cautious around regular people is smart.”

As he speaks, gunfire erupts from the village—rapid “rat-tat-tat” bursts.

Cherry jumps, finally understanding, and rambles to his stream:
“I get it now!
That scammer’s just a regular guy, yet he dares rip us off because he’s got a deadly weapon!
F*ck, good thing Wind Bro told me to move, or I’d be a corpse by now!”

He glances at the world chat.
Sure enough, players at the weapon NPC’s place are getting mowed down.
Twin Islands isn’t a safe zone—dying in the wild drops experience.
The first wave of players who killed sharks for materials and went for secondary weapons?
Level 5s dropped to 4, 4s to 3.

The world chat’s a storm of curses.

Cherry swallows hard, checking the server’s player rankings.
Top spot: [Clouds and Breezes].
Second: Cherry himself.

All he can muster is: “Holy sh*t!”

His stream’s popularity spiked after their unorthodox achievement.
Now it’s buzzing:

[Can’t tell who’s the newbie and who’s the pro.]
[LOL, “I love carrying newbies!”]
[Wind Bro’s got some serious skills!]
[Too clutch! Straight to first and second!]
[Peach Bro, watch out—NPC and players might team up to take you out!]

Every NPC in this game has a favorability system.
Raise it high enough, and they give rewards, some unique, like skills.
This weapon merchant, for instance, might teach crafting skills if you grind his favorability.
Most players would bend over backward for that, not threaten him like Yun Shi did.
Now, that NPC’s favorability toward them is likely in the negatives.

Negative favorability means next time they meet, he might open fire on sight.

Twin Islands has only one weapon merchant.
They got their gear but lost any chance to trade with him again.

As for the other players, they won’t blame themselves for jumping on the bandwagon—they’ll blame the instigators.
Not everyone’s petty enough to start trouble, but some might.

It’s not unsolvable.
Level up fast, leave Twin Islands for the main city, and find new merchants.
Those players who lost levels?
Unless they outlevel or outgear Yun Shi and Cherry, picking a fight means another level drop.

Cherry, catching his stream’s warnings, suggests to Yun Shi:
“Wanna grind mobs to level up together?”

“Nah, I’m selling some materials and logging off.”
Yun Shi switches to world chat, spotting players eager to buy secondary weapon materials.
Leveling, grinding, and quests can wait—he needs money for food.

Cherry asks: “Selling shark teeth?
Sell to me.
I’ll give them to my fans.”

Yun Shi nods: “Sure.”

CherryWhatFlavor hasn’t hidden his streaming.
His game streamer status is obvious.
Selling to him saves time and hassle—scamming materials on stream would tank his rep.
They settle on a price and trade.

Cherry doesn’t lowball.
Shark teeth are the best sub-weapon material below level 20, and leveling in Breath of Life isn’t easy—reaching 20 takes at least two days.

World chat’s latest update: the Twin Islands weapon merchant stopped taking threats but lowered his price.
Now, crafting a curved blade costs one shark tooth.
Yun Shi’s three teeth are worth one and a half weapons.

Final price: 18 gold coins, with a 1:1 gold-to-Star-Coin exchange.
Yun Shi needs Star Coins, so Cherry pays in them.

Money in hand, Yun Shi logs off instantly.

The light cyan wind figure vanishes into the forest.
Cherry, stunned by the speed, mutters: “That quick?
I didn’t even add him as a friend…”

Yun Shi removes his game helmet, hit by waves of weakness, fatigue, and gnawing hunger pangs.
He sits up on the bed, checking the time—two and a half hours have passed.

In-game, the system had gently reminded him three times to eat.

He spends 10 Star Coins on a basic nutrient solution, ordered locally.
Delivery’s fast—three minutes later, a small, square robot arrives.

The original owner named the butler robot Big Pillar.
Big Pillar signs for the delivery, opens the package, and hands Yun Shi the nutrient solution.

“Thanks.”
Yun Shi takes it, staring at it for two seconds before downing it.

The nutrient solution is tasteless, sticky, and far from delicious.
But fullness hits quickly, soothing his empty stomach.
A sip of hot water from Big Pillar warms him up.

Yun Shi exhales, finally feeling alive.

His account holds 8 Star Coins, plus 2 gold in-game—enough for another nutrient solution, but barely.

After a short rest, he logs back in.

He reappears in the bamboo forest, vision still clearing when he hears nearby voices.

“Sure it’s this way?”
“Positive! I saw him in this forest!”
“Probably went deeper to grind. Let’s go!”

The voices fade, but Yun Shi catches “grinding deeper.”

The forest where he logged off isn’t far from the NPC camp.
Per the game’s design, NPCs likely patrol nearby, so grinding requires venturing deeper.

Free of constant hunger, Yun Shi’s in better shape now and heads deeper into the forest.

Early game, NPC quests give more experience than grinding mobs.
But at the weapon merchant’s, Yun Shi noticed their hours end at 6 PM game time.
For the next three hours, he’d better avoid their sight.
He can grind mobs now and return later for quests.

The forest’s outskirts lack mobs but have sparse resources—collectible grass, fallen branches, herbs hidden in weeds.
Like the lack of a tutorial, there’s no gathering prompt.
These blend into the scenery, unnoticed unless you look.

With his next meal secured, Yun Shi takes his time.
By the time he spots mobs, his inventory’s first page is half full of odds and ends.

The mobs are mutant wolves—normal size, level 5, 280 health, with the alpha at 300.

Of Yun Shi’s six skills, [Wind Butterfly] is primarily a buff with control.
It summons translucent cyan wings, pulling enemies together with each flap, up to three times before cooling down.
No damage, but perfect for grouping mobs for area attacks.

Still, his role leans toward support.
He has one area skill, [Wind Feather].
[Wind Blade] and [Wind Arrow] are single-target.
Clearing multiple mobs at once isn’t practical.
He can whittle them down with low-cooldown skills and finish with a grouped area attack.

Yun Shi surveys the forest, nocks an arrow, and prepares—then freezes.
No pain, just a chill.

The game’s one departure from reality: no pain, a deliberate choice to distinguish virtual from real, like a dream.

He turns, spotting four players emerging from the forest’s other side.
The leader, a fire user, ID BlazingBro, and an ice-blue-clad player glowing red—clearly the one who controlled him.

“Ha! Found you! That guy turned into a wind user, right?”
“Yup, saw it!”
“Think you can act all high and mighty?!”

They shout skill names, attacking Yun Shi.

Yun Shi frowns—skills work by calling them out?
But their chanting gives him time.
As their skills near, his control effect ends.
With wind’s speed boost, he dodges their attack range.

Before they react, he unleashes [Wind Butterfly].
Giant wings flap, pulling the unprepared group together.
They collide, unsteady, as the wings flap again.

Yun Shi aims at the ice user who controlled him, landing two single-target skills and two basic attacks under physical damage buffs.
The ice user drops.
As the wings prepare a third flap, he fires a basic shot at the water user.
The wings flap, staggering the water user.
Yun Shi’s steady hand lands another basic shot, followed by two cooled-down single-target skills.
The water user falls.

[Wind Butterfly] ends—two of the four are down.

The remaining two pale, throwing control skills.
They hit, but the cyan figure is unaffected—they realize too late he used his anti-control skill.

A faint bell chime rings.
Despite being a ranged class, the wind user closes in.
He hurls [Wind Blade] at the thunder user, then draws his curved blade, slashing their throat.
The thunder user is one-shot.

“F*ck!”
Only BlazingBro, the fire user, remains—stunned, panicked, furious.
He forgets his skill names, hesitates, then remembers—but Yun Shi’s held-back [Wind Bind] controls him.

BlazingBro watches, helpless, as the expressionless wind user slashes twice with the same blade that killed his teammate.
70 piercing damage, critical hit, plus physical buffs.

43 seconds.
[Wind Butterfly] refreshes.
The four-man team is wiped out.

Four corpses lie neatly on the ground.
Dead players can’t speak but can type.
Text scrolls above them, reflecting their thoughts:

[…Fck!]
[Help… what just happened?]
[Holy sht! Bad*ss!]

BlazingBro says nothing, reviving and leaving.

Yun Shi, down only 15 health, looks at the three remaining corpses.
“You attacked first.”

The water user, [ImMadeOfWaterToo], hurries: “Misunderstanding, big shot! Total misunderstanding!”

“Yeah, yeah!” the others chime in, explaining.

They were after a mist user with a skill to disguise as other players.
Right before Yun Shi appeared, the mist user mimicked a wind user.
Seeing Yun Shi, they thought they’d found their target and controlled him first.
They didn’t expect to get wiped.

The reason for their grudge?
A bit embarrassing.

They were grinding in another forest.
BlazingBro, with a girl he knew in real life and was chasing, was showing off.
But a solo mist user outshone him, pulling and killing mobs with ease.
The girl kept watching the mist user, ignoring BlazingBro.
Tensions rose when BlazingBro, overconfident, pulled a man-eating flower and got half his butt chomped.
The mist user laughed—once—and that sparked the feud.

“…” Yun Shi, speechless, doesn’t comment but finds the mist skill intriguing.

A sudden feeling makes him look up at a tree ahead.
A player in dark gray, wearing glasses, smiles and waves, saying, “Hello.”

Yun Shi narrows his eyes, reading the ID: MistInTheView.
This is the mist user who laughed, caused a feud, got him involved, and watched from the sidelines?